The feeding on a god

Theophagy is a word of Ancient Greek origin that means “the feeding on a god” or “eating/devouring god”, from ???? (Theós, “god”) and the suffix -phagy (to feed on, to eat/devour).

In fertility rituals, the harvested grain may itself be the reborn god of vegetation. This practice has origins in ancient religions: Dionysus and many examples are documented in The Golden Bough by Sir James George Frazer.

Theophagy was the widely spread practice in the ancient world of eating the body of the deity. In Christianity this practice continues in the consumption of the Eucharist, in which the consecrated bread and wine, which Catholics believed is the body and blood of Jesus Christ, is consumed in the ritual of Holy Communion. Early Christians ate the paschal lamb, the burnt offering that symbolized the crucified Jesus.

It is done to achieve:

• Great clarity

• God transfers his regenerating, recreating Spirit to humankind through this medium

• a visionary ‘meal’ experience—a gastronomical vision—in which the initiate ingests the presence of God

• to prompt the visionary-cognitive encounter with the divine. Upon beholding God directly, the initiate takes possession of the Spirit of life and undergoes an ontological transformation such that he or she comes to possess the existence of the new creation